ScholarWorks@UMassAmherst
We are now able to accept submissions directly in ScholarWorks. For submissions that are not doctoral dissertations or masters theses, please log in with your NetID, click the + (plus) in to the top left corner, and select the Submit Research option.
Graduate students filing for February 2025 degrees: We are now accepting submissions directly to ScholarWorks. Directions for submissions can be found in this guide. Please email scholarworks@library.umass.edu if you have any questions.
Request forms are functional. If you do not receive a reply to a submitted request, please email scholarworks@library.umass.edu.
This site is still under construction, please see our ScholarWorks guide for updates.
Recent Submissions
Publication Songs of Reform: Using the National Jukebox, Prohibition Era Music, and Student Writing to Explore Cultural Change and Political Participation(University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2025-03)A History/Social Studies/AP U.S. History Learning Plan for Grades 8-12 This learning plan uses primary source materials (including music from the Library of Congress’ National Jukebox) and student writing to explore the role of music and songs during the Prohibition era of United States history.Publication CIE Retreat - 1999(Center for International Education, UMass Amherst, 1999-10)One of the activities of this retreat was to create a visual artifact representing your country of origin.Publication Economic inequality in India over the last three decades: A tale of two data sources(2025)In this paper, I discuss the evolution of economic inequality over the past three decades in India. I use two different data sources for the analysis: distribution of consumption expenditure data from published NSS reports and distribution of pre-tax national income data from the website of the World Inequality Database (WID). In comparison to WID, NSS data not only underestimates the level of inequality at any point in time, but it can also give an erroneous picture about the change in inequality over time. By failing to adequately capture the income or expenditure distribution, NSS data paints a misleading picture about economic inequality. Researchers should use caution before exclusively using NSS consumption expenditure data for the analysis of economic inequality in India.Publication Assessing Hunter Values, Expectations, and Satisfaction Regarding Controlled White-tailed Deer Hunts in Suburban Eastern Massachusetts(2025-02)The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife), the state agency responsible for managing white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), is tasked with maintaining deer populations at both biologically and culturally beneficial levels and supports deer management in the form of regulated hunting as a fiscally responsible, ecologically sound, and socially beneficial strategy for meeting that objective. White-tailed deer are ubiquitous throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, particularly in eastern portions of the state where suburban neighborhoods, scattered woodlots, and ample travel corridors create a landscape mosaic comprised of high-quality deer habitat and protection from hunting. Given that native predators of deer, gray wolves (Canis lupus) and mountain lions (Puma concolor), have been locally extirpated, deer mortality rates due to predation are lower than historic levels. Regulated hunting by licensed individuals serves as one of the only remaining mortality factors for adult deer. Suburban environments, however, often serve as refugia from hunters as firearm discharge setbacks and numerous local bylaws highly restrict hunter access to suburban deer habitat. Lack of predation by both extirpated carnivores and hunters coupled with the abundance of high-quality habitat have resulted in increased survival and reproductive rates of suburban deer. Subsequently, deer populations in suburban eastern Massachusetts have continued to grow and become denser over the long-term. High deer densities in these heavily human-populated landscapes have resulted in severe ecological damage to remaining undeveloped parcels of land as well as an abundance of human-deer conflicts in the form of property damage, deer-vehicle collisions, and increased instances of tick-borne illnesses. Among many logistical challenges associated with suburban hunting is the concern regarding long-term availability of devoted hunters. If deer density goals are to be met, managers must depend on individuals with an interest in suburban hunting who are motivated to reduce deer populations to desired levels, or at a minimum, slow their continued growth. If regulated hunting is to be used as the primary management tool for addressing overabundant deer populations in eastern Massachusetts, it is of significant importance that there is a dependable suburban hunting constituency. Without hunters willing to participate in suburban deer management programs annually, it is unlikely that deer densities will ever be reduced to numbers that minimize ecological degradation and human-deer conflicts. In 2015 a controlled deer management program designed to address the ecological impacts caused by deer was designed for the Blue Hills Reservation near Boston, Massachusetts. This development provided an opportunity to investigate the motivations, expectations, and values of suburban deer hunters through a questionnaire. This research effort consisted of a comprehensive web-based questionnaire designed to investigate suburban deer hunters’ values, motivations, perceptions, and expectations for their hunting experiences. Results of this study will facilitate the first steps toward developing effective and lasting deer management programs in suburban eastern Massachusetts towns by using the adaptive impact management approach. MassWildlife biologists and managers will be better able to understand what motivates hunters to participate in controlled deer hunts so that they may guide communities in developing more successful, lasting deer management programs. Without devoted hunters who are willing to contribute high levels of effort to reduce deer densities, suburban deer management programs using regulated hunting will not likely prove successful. If community members, town representatives, and state wildlife authorities communicate clearly to make realistic, science-based decisions, effective suburban deer management programs using regulated hunting may be attainable in eastern Massachusetts.Publication 3D Shape Variation of the Cichlid Gill Arch: Genetic Architecture and Evolutionary Implications(2025-02)Vertebrate craniofacial development is a highly dynamic process with many of the mechanisms regulating more subtle variations in morphology poorly understood. Cichlid fishes exhibit a diverse array of craniofacial morphologies well suited to study these more subtle variations. A conserved feature of vertebrate craniofacial development is the formation of embryonic pharyngeal pouches, which are the basis of serially homologous bones (i.e., the pharyngeal skeleton). Of these structures the bones that make up the gill arch skeleton, primarily the epibranchial (EB) dorsally and ceratobranchial (CB) ventrally, have received little attention in the context of development and evolution despite the multifaceted demands of the arch in respiration and feeding. Here, we sought to characterize morphological variation of the cichlid gill arch, assess the degree to which it is associated with foraging ecological, and uncover its genetic basis. Our quantification of gill arch shape was twofold with a 3D geometric morphometric analysis of CB1 and a ratio of CB1 to EB1 length as a proxy of arch curvature. These methods were employed in two main populations: a natural population consisting of 85 species of cichlid and a F5 hybrid population consisting of 402 hybrids, derived from crossing two species with divergent pharyngeal skeletal shape, Labeotropheus fuelleborni (LF) and Tropheops sp. “red cheek” (TRC). Our findings suggest that gill arch curvature exhibits market variation among species and differs between species with different foraging modes. In the hybrid population we saw a recapitulation of the variations in shape observed between species. Next, we used quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis to identify 5 regions of the genome associated with gill arch shape. Modes of inheritance ranged from additive to dominant to overdominant, suggesting a complex genetic basis. Of those 5 regions, the QTL on chromosome 6 provided as a candidate for fine mapping to increase our genotypic-phenotypic resolution within that interval. Through fine mapping we were able to identify a total of 7 candidate genes that may be responsible for regulating CB1 shape, including fgf20a, a known bone remodeler. Overall, our findings suggest that the ecological consequences of and genetic basis for gill arch shape is worthy of further study.
Communities in ScholarWorks
Select a community to browse its collections.